This invention relates to an apparatus for water compacting of hot whole cheeses, particularly those of so-called spun paste such as, for example, "mozzarellas".
In dairy industries, the hot whole spun cheeses as obtained, for example, from the forming machine or from the spunning and forming machine, are compacted by contact with cooler water, which may be at the temperature of the water system, or even lower if suitably cooled.
The compacting process is carried out in apparatuses of two types. Namely, one type of apparatus comprises a simple tank, in which water is circulated and into which the whole cheeses are introduced by manual operation and then still manually removed at the end of compacting process. The drawbacks of this type of apparatus are just those of batch processes, with the addition of the heaviness of loading and unloading work imposed on the workers.
The second type of apparatus comprises a tank having arranged therein a continuous conveyor on which such whole cheeses travel in countercurrent to the cooling water.
The most apparent drawbacks of this type of apparatus are the comparatively substantial vertical overall size of the continuous conveyor requiring a tank water level which is higher than that strictly necessary, with resulting larger dimensioning of the tank and other carrying parts, and necessity of driving the conveyor by shafts passing through the tank walls on sealed bearings of difficult and inconvenient manufacture.